County Commission rejects paving plan for road in Rolling Hills

The county's process for creating special tax districts to pave local roads triumphed in court, but that doesn't mean the conflict has been resolved.

By Bill ThompsonStaff writer

Marion County's process for creating special tax districts to pave local roads recently triumphed in the state's highest court, but that doesn't mean the conflict has been resolved — especially among the County Commission members.

While the board has long agreed upon and championed the concept of making property owners within subdivisions — and not taxpayers at large — pay for their own road improvements, the weight of growing maintenance costs in some areas has presented a dilemma in the county's approach.

That division over the details was displayed Tuesday during a debate over a proposed paving project in the Rolling Hills subdivision in western Marion. At issue was a plan to pave Southwest 135th Court Road.

For nearly 30 years the County Commission has allowed landowners in certain to conduct a straw ballot on whether to create either a Municipal Services Benefit Unit, or MSBU, or a Municipal Services Taxing Unit, or MSTU, to pay for the paving.

Although each is a special tax district, the distinction lies in the method of taxation. Legally, people under an MSBU pay a fee rather than a property tax, as is levied under an MSTU.

Over the past three decades, the board has held the nonbinding vote to gauge community support for the project.

Southwest 135th Court Road seemed an ideal segment to qualify. For one thing, the 0.3-mile segment connects two roads that were previously improved under the county's program: Southwest 64th Street Road, paved in 2009; and Southwest 66th Street, finished in 1989.

Moreover, Commissioner David Moore said on Tuesday that he toured the area with Assistant County Administrator Mounir Bouyounes and was struck by the poor condition of Southwest 135th Court Road.

Moore noted that had he been in his own car — a Toyota — rather than a county vehicle with four-wheel drive, he would have been stuck.

“You shouldn't have to have a four-wheel drive to get in and out of your house, in my opinion,” Moore said.

“The road is really bad,” she said. “We're in desperate need of that road being paved.”

Yet the project also underscores the problem the County Commission has dealt with for years.

Twenty property owners hold land along Southwest 135th Court Road, according to a county report. Only 11 of them voted during the straw ballot. Of those, one was late and tossed out. The remaining 10 were deadlocked at five each.

In essence, five landowners were asking that 15 of their neighbors and themselves pay, according to the county's estimate, between $5,500 and $6,500 to pave the road.

The county has been sued on three occasions over the past six years because the board went forward with other projects with a similar ballot outcome. Those cases cited a 1985 state law, repealed in 2010, that said such projects must garner at least 51 percent of all the property owners to proceed.

The commission in 1996 had adopted a policy that permitted them to approve a paving project so long as 50-percent-plus-one of the landowners who actually voted were in favor.

While the county lost the battle in those legal disputes, and were even forced to issue rebates, it ultimately won the war.

That's because last month the Florida Supreme Court opted to not hear an appeal related to a 2009 county ordinance that forces landowners to pay the paving costs, if the County Commission seeks to collect, even though a judge rules they were wrongly charged in the first place.

The high court's decision meant that opponents of such projects would have to convince the board not to impose the tax or fee to begin with.

On Tuesday, the County Commission declined to go along. That came after internal auditor Wallace Watford reported that the excluded vote was against the project.

The board's decision served to highlight how commissioners struggle philosophically with paying for road maintenance.

Commissioners' long-standing mindset of making the locals pay their own way has been upset by Bouyounes' advocacy of trying to get a handle on communities without special tax districts, or those that had passed them years ago and whose roads were now deteriorating.

Bouyounes, who oversees public works, told the board in February that the county would need to spend about $15 million annually to keep its road network in fair or good condition.

The hurdle is that the county targets only about $4.5 million in gas tax revenues for its repaving program.

And the bulk of that is eaten up by subdivision roads that the county is responsible for maintaining.

The board had directed him to bring back a list of the 10 costliest communities so the board could approach them about adopting a special tax district.

That list is still being drafted.

On Tuesday, Zalak said he did not even want to consider — and would not support — any proposal unless more than half the community demonstrated support for it.

Yet Zalak added that he would have no problem voting to tax the 10 areas identified by Buoyounes without a ballot being held.

“I'm OK without a petition if the costs are that high,” he added. “I'd rather not have a petition than somebody come back and say this thing failed by 20 percent and we still went ahead and did it anyway. I'm more uncomfortable in that situation.”

Arnett suggested that public safety could be could be a more heavily weighted factor than the vote in determining whether to proceed.

McClain said he could support Zalak's idea, and agreed that Arnett made a good point. But, he added, that he also could stick with the ballot process because that has been the board's method for years.

Some amount of opposition was always going to be present, McClain observed, and his main concern was to limit the burden for taxpayers who paid into the road-maintenance fund without living in the affected communities.

Bryant opposed Zalak's suggestion.

While “more than likely” the board would not vote for the tax unless more than 50 percent wanted it, but she said she still sought a ballot on all occasions — even the 10 biggest drains on the coffers — to see how the particular community wanted to proceed.

But, she pointed out, people in the 10 costliest neighborhoods would not even know why they were being taxed without the ballot process.

“If we're going to assess someone,” she said, “they need to be part of the process, regardless.”